Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bonding pad test configuration for establishing whether or not a semiconductor chip is bonded. The configuration has a circuit that evaluates a state of a bond between a bonding wire and a bonding pad and is able to activate and deactivate operating and test modes depending on the determined bond state.
When semiconductor chips are being manufactured and when they have to pass through operating and test modes, it should always be evident whether or not the respective semiconductor chips are already reliably bonded. For this, it would be particularly advantageous if the semiconductor chip were itself able to recognize whether or not it is already bonded, so that it is then possible for the individual operating and test modes to be activated and deactivated depending on its respective fitment state. Such a property of the semiconductor chip would have the considerable advantage that it would be possible to dispense with putting the chip into an appropriate test lab, with the considerable waste of time that this entails. Until now, no-one has thought of producing a test configuration with which a semiconductor chip can itself recognize whether or not it is already bonded.